Astronomy: from the beginning: A history of skywatching and early astronomers from cave paintings and stone circles to the Renaissance and the first telescopes by Seddon Christopher

Astronomy: from the beginning: A history of skywatching and early astronomers from cave paintings and stone circles to the Renaissance and the first telescopes by Seddon Christopher

Author:Seddon, Christopher [Seddon, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Glanville Publications
Published: 2020-08-18T16:00:00+00:00


13: India

The historical context

The first urban society to emerge in the Indian subcontinent was the Harappan civilisation, which flourished between 2600 and 1900 BC in the floodplains of the Indus and the now-dry Ghaggar-Hakra rivers. Centred on the two great urban sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, it extended over a wide area of Pakistan, southern Afghanistan, and northwest India. Though it is less well known to the general public than contemporary civilisations in Mesopotamia (Akkadian empire and the Third Dynasty of Ur) and Egypt (Old Kingdom), it dwarfed them in terms of land area and population. Mesopotamian records suggest trading contacts, although the earliest astronomical records from there postdate the collapse of the Harappan civilisation, and we do not know what if any transmission of astronomical knowledge there was between the two.

Despite efforts over many decades, the writing systems of the Harappans have not been deciphered. Some scholars dispute whether the Harappan script genuinely was a writing system1 , although this is a minority view2,3 . Even the language spoken remains uncertain, although it is thought to be a Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, or Munda language4 . Conceivably, many languages were spoken throughout the Harappan world1 . The Dravidian languages are mainly spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka, though there are speakers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. Indo-Aryan is a branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Pakistan, northern India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. The Munda languages are a subgroup of the Austroasiatic family and are mainly spoken in eastern India and Bangladesh.

Consequently, the Harappan civilisation remains enigmatic to this day. The collapse of Harappan society around 1900 BC was probably due to a variety of economic and environmental factors, principally the drying-up of the Ghaggar-Hakra, but until we can understand their written records our understanding will remain incomplete.

The period that followed the collapse is known as the Vedic period. The name comes from the Vedas, which are liturgical texts that nevertheless give an indication of what life was like at the time. Neither the Vedas nor their associated texts are astronomical texts, but it is claimed that they encode astronomical knowledge from the Vedic period, or even from the Harappan period. They are written in an ancient form of Sanskrit known as Vedic Sanskrit. Like Latin, Sanskrit is no longer in day-to-day use, but it remains one of the 22 official languages of India. Vedic Sanskrit is descended from proto-Indo-Aryan; the Indo-Aryan languages were brought to the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia by Bronze Age pastoralists whose ultimate origin has been traced to the Pontic-Caspian steppe5 . For a long time, it was believed that the post-Harappan period was characterised by violent Indo-Aryan invasions, but this hypothesis was abandoned in the 1960s as theories postulating invasions fell out of favour6 .

Early Vedic period society was semi-nomadic; the economy was pastoral with limited agriculture. The later Vedic period from about 1200 BC saw more settled societies, the introduction of iron tools, and from around 600 BC, larger urban societies reappeared6 .



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